Imperfect
by GennaWeasley
Summary: Letters-verse - Nobody's Perfect. Set of three shorts, one for each of the Letters trio
1. Wrong

"Wrong"

The Doctor had once told Alex that Jack was capital-W-"Wrong". In front of Jack.

"What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean?" she'd asked.

"He's a fixed point in Time and Space. He can't die because he always exists," he'd tried to explain. "And it's _Wrong_. It shouldn't be possible. And impossible things are…"

"Shut up. This is Jack we're talking about!" interrupted Alex.

"I know that," replied the Doctor.

_He can't help it, Sweetheart. He's just wired that way. Jack feels Wrong to him._

"So why do you keep him so close, if he's 'Wrong'?"

"It's become something of a comfort. He's a constant."

_They told me that you and Rose made him like this. Why'd you do it if it's so Wrong?_

_It _isn't_ wrong. Jack's my baby. The Doctor just doesn't get it yet. Time Lords aren't as complex as they like to think they are. But we did it for him._

_For him?_

_So he would always have someone._

"Does he know that, Doc?" Alex had asked softly. "'Cause he looked pretty hurt when you shouted in his face that he was Wrong."

"I- I didn't mean… I lost my temper. He was in my way, he was talking too much, and it – the Wrongness – was bothering me more than usual…"

"Doc, go apologize. And _never_ let me hear you call him that again."

* * *

"There," the Doctor said. "I've talked to Jack. Everything's all sorted out, no hard feelings."

"Are you _really_ that thick?"replied Alex.

"What do you mean?"

"You _hurt_ him Doc. And this clearly isn't the first time it's come up. Do you really think a few words would fix that?"

"Jack said –"

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

"Are you being vague on purpose?"

Alex sighed. "Of course he'd tell you it was alright. He doesn't want you feeling guilty over something you can't control."

"So he didn't mean it?" asked the Doctor.

Alex's expression softened. "Oh, Doc, of course he meant it. There isn't much Jack wouldn't forgive you for. On the other hand, you can't just take his forgiveness for granted." She sat down next to him. "And like I said before, _never_ say that again. You can't afford to push each other away. When it comes down to it, he's all you've got."

"I have you," the Doctor replied, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

"But for how long? I'm only human, Doc. Eventually, I'll die or have to leave, just like Martha, Rose, and everyone before them and everyone after me. But Jack can and will _always_ be there and can and will _always_ come back. You need that. And he needs you."

The Doctor didn't respond.

"What's _wrong_ here isn't what Jack is. It's that for all of your standing up for those who need it, for all of your fierce defence of the weak, for all of the _good_ you've done, **nothing** stopped you from looking your best friend in the eye and calling him a freak of nature." She kissed him on the cheek. "Okay, I'm done. Think about it, though."

_You're doing good, Sweetheart._

_I hope so._

* * *

"You're wrong, you know," Jack told her later.

"About _what_, Jack?" Alex asked.

"He doesn't need me."

She threw a tangerine at him. "Don't you dare talk like that."

"It's true."

"Like hell it is. In the end, all you have is each other. Of course he needs you."

* * *

After that day, they never talked about it again.

Alex considered this a success.

Jack may be temporally wrong, but for the Doctor he was so, so right.

It would just take some convincing to make them see it.


	2. Fragile

"Fragile"

Alex had just stormed away. The Doctor considered it a pretty safe bet that she'd convinced the TARDIS to hide her room until the boys thought better of what they'd said. Specifically Jack.

"I didn't mean to offend her," Jack insisted.

"Consider who you're talking about," replied the Doctor. "Alex resents the idea that she might not be good or strong enough. Did you honestly thing she'd take well to being called fragile?"

"It's a relative thing," defended Jack. "She understands relativity!"

"But she detests being reminded of her weaknesses."

Jack sighed. "Next to you and me, how can she_ not _seem fragile, Doc? She's only human. She doesn't heal as fast as we do, or as well. And if she dies, she's not coming back."

"I understand, Jack. Believe me, I do," the Doctor said, "but this is Allie. Fragile though she may be by our standards, compared to most humans she's pretty tough." He crossed the room and sat down next to Jack. "I know as well as you do that people who aren't like you or me are eventually going to leave or die on us. But because of that, not despite it, we have to let them be a little reckless. They've only got one shot. We can't treat them – including _her_– like they're made of glass."

"You did _hear_ what she was suggesting, right?" replied Jack.

The Doctor nodded.

"Doc, there is a difference between reckless and deadly. Her idea kind of crossed that line. By a lot."

"Jack, there is a difference between _worried_ and _blindly overprotective_. You're straying dangerously close to the latter."

"Point taken."

* * *

The Doctor had been half-right about Alex's hiding spot. She'd been damn near impossible to find, but she wasn't in her room. He found her asleep in what she had dubbed his "nostalgia closet" – the large room in which he kept clothes he'd worn in previous incarnations – wrapped up in his 4th self's scarf.

"Allie?" he said tentatively, kneeling next to her and touching her shoulder.

"No, I'm mad at you," she mumbled. "You have to call me Alex."

"Why are you upset with _me?_ I haven't done anything!"

"You agree with him."

The Doctor sighed. "For a moment, would you stop acting like he murdered your puppy – to borrow your phrase for it – and get a little bit of perspective?"

Alex shot him an irked look, but didn't say anything.

Taking this as an invitation to keep talking, the Doctor continued, "Jack is very old, by human standards. I'm several hundred years older than he is. We've both got a long time ahead of us and an escape route from death. Next to that, how could a regular human _not_ seem... fragile?"

Alex flinched. "I know. I understand, sort of. It's just... my brothers always kind of treated me like a responsibility when we were younger – like I couldn't deal with anything on my own, just because I was smaller and not as strong and sometimes I can't see. But you two know better than anyone that I can handle myself. So if even _you_ see me as breakable..."

The Doctor put his arms around her. "He didn't mean it like that, Alex."

"I know," Alex said after a short pause. "It just kind of touched a nerve, you know?"

The Doctor nodded. "I know."

* * *

"I apologized," Jack told the Doctor later.

The Doctor smiled. "Good. Now don't do it again."

"I won't," replied Jack, sounding rather like a little kid who'd been caught doing something he oughtn't to.

Which, arguably, he was.

* * *

"Fragile" is a relative term.

Compared to glass, plastic is pretty strong.

Compared to diamond, it's very easily shattered.

Likewise, next to an immortal and a Time Lord, Alex – with her one short life – seems incredibly breakable.

But next to most humans, she is so very, very strong.


	3. Broken

"Broken"

Sometimes, on the days when they go somewhere they've never been and see something they've never seen and the Doctor bounces around like a little kid at Disney World, it's easy to forget that the Doctor has seen so much hurt and destruction.

And then there are days when it all gets to him. There are days when he doesn't leave his room, when he doesn't talk to his Companions, when he even ignores the TARDIS.

When they woke up, Alex and Jack could tell it was one of those days. The night before it had been a difficult one – a painful reminder that even the Doctor couldn't save everyone.

Alex leans against the kitchen doorframe. "I wish there were some way we could help him."

Jack pauses his pacing and looks at her. "We could, if he'd let us. But we've been through this before – he wouldn't even let us though the door."

"Right," agrees Alex. She sighs. "He has to deal with it on his own. It'd be easier for him if he'd just talk to us, but _no_. Days like to day he just ignores us, and days like tomorrow he pretends it never happened."

Jack walks over to her and hugs her. "He feels _responsible._ You know how he gets."

"But he isn't!" Alex exclaims frustratedly. "When it came down to it, there was nothing he could do." She shakes her head. "It wasn't even his decision in the end.

Jack nods. "He'd gotten kind of attached to M'kaela though."

"We all had," Alex agrees. "But it was her or half the planet, so I can't feel too terrible about it. She saved everyone."

"Everyone but herself," corrects Jack.

"Well, yeah," says Alex. "Hence –" she nods at the closed door across the hall. Jack nods.

They stand there in silence for a while.

"Did he do this sort of thing the first time you travelled with him?" Alex asks after a while.

Jack nods. "Once or twice."

Alex looks disappointed. "If he did this with Rose around, then there's _really_ nothing you and I can do."

"He's broken," says Jack. "He's broken, and the universe never really gives him enough of a break to stop and fix himself. Time will help, a bit. But even though it seems like we can't help, we have to keep trying. 'Cause he needs our support, too."

Jack and Alex walk into the Doctor's room and sit down on either side of him.

Alex notices that M'kaela's name has already been added to a constantly growing list of lost friends that sits on the desk.

(She lives in a state of constant temptation to take the list of 'failures' and hide it, but she long ago decided that she never would.)

She puts her arms around the Doctor and refuses to let go. "We're here for you, Doc," she whispers. Then she kisses him on the cheek.

Jack presses a soft kiss to the top of the Doctor's head and adds, "We love you."

And the Doctor, who has seen far too much hurt and felt far too much pain, just nods and pulls them both closer.

He may never be fixed, but at least he's not alone.


End file.
